Running, Essentially . . .

Marathon recovery weeks & weight training

After the marathon on December 5th, I took five days off with 6 miles on the following Saturday and a couple of miles on the Sunday. The next week I very comfortably ran 36 miles and today, completed a 40.5 mile week. Feels like business as usual and I look forward to running at least 45 miles over the next seven days.

Tomorrow, I’ll start my off-season weight training routine beginning with the muscular adaptation phase of very easy upper and lower body weights in sets of 2 X 20-30 repetitions. The starting point is about 40-50% of the maximum weight lifted during the maximum strength phase. I would have started a couple of weeks ago however the weight room at the YMCA has been under renovation and is set to open tomorrow.

My favourite part of weight training is doing squats on the Smith Machine. Here is a good YouTube “how to” on how to use this piece of equipment. The best thing to do when you start up is to use no weight at all, just the bar, in order to get used to how the machine works and the proper motion. Done properly, squats should not hurt your back. My maximum lift when doing 3 X 4-5 reps is 135 pounds which is close to 130% of my body weight. This is about what is recommended for open-age women. I’ll have to double-check my reference book, Triathlete’s Training Bible by Joe Friel to see what the percentage is for men.

The order of lifts should go from the larger muscles to smaller. This is simple to figure out as the more weight you can lift, the larger the muscle.

I figure I’ll be lifting weights for the rest of my life as like running, I’ve grown used to the well-being that comes with sticking to this regime. Highly recommended!